Relishing his own wisdom, Moskover rocked on his heels, hands folded across his stomach. “Well, I’m certainly glad to hear you say that, Maxie. Wouldn’t want to see a young fella in this day and age playing for his dinner on some street corner.”
Moskover momentarily diverted his attention to the scale where Amos Kerkorian was weighing the piece of cheese. “Make sure it’s a pound,” he cautioned, again with a wag of his index finger.
“As a matter of fact, it’s eighteen ounces,” said Kerkorian, barely managing to hold his temper, “but I’ll only charge you for a pound.”
To the rabbi Moskover said, “Did I tell you I’ve been a steady customer here for thirty years?”
“Yes, you did,” Teitelman replied respectfully. “That’s a long time.”
“Well, Rabbi,” said Moskover, becoming mellow, “I’m one of the oldest Jewish settlers in Steelton. I came here more than fifty years ago, long before you were born. How old d’ya think I am?”
The rabbi shrugged. “I don’t know.” Secretly he figured well over eighty.
“Seventy-seven!” Moskover shouted proudly, as if he had just captured seventy-seven enemy soldiers single-handedly.
Rabbi Teitelman offered the only honest thing he could. “You certainly don’t look your age.” Moskover, of course, chose to take this as a compliment.
“Of course I look a lot younger. Know why? Because I, Morris Moskover, hold the magic formula for eternal youth!”
Everyone in the store, including Amos Kerkorian, focused their attention on the Sage.
“What,” asked Rabbi Teitelman, “is the magic formula, Mr. Moskover?”
“A sense of humour, Rabbi. A sense of humour!”
Looking even more serious and respectful, the Lubavitcher said, “You are indeed a blessed man, Mr. Moskover.”
Moskover agreed fully. “I’ll tell the world I’m a blessed man!” Then he began in a quiet, confidential tone, “Mind if I give you a friendly piece of advice, Rabbi? I mean, I’m old enough to be your father, even though I don’t look it.” His eyes, like rivets, fastened themselves in the Lubavitcher’s pale face. “What you need, Rabbi … is to develop a sense of humour.”
“Really?” The Lubavitcher displayed keen interest.
“Look, Rabbi, I like to come right to the point. That’s Morris Moskover’s way. I don’t twist, I don’t turn, I don’t go in circles like most folks. If there’s a problem, a person can always come to Morris Moskover for a solution. I have what’s called an analytical mind, you see. An analytical mind, plus a sense of humour. The two go hand in hand. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, yes, I think so.”
“Excellent! Then already you’ve made the first important step: you’re ready, willing and able to be helped by Morris Moskover. Now I come right to my point.” The Local Sage shook his head slowly from side to side, as if he’d caught the rabbi eating spareribs at Hong Ling’s. “Last night, Rabbi … last night …” He shook his head again, more reproachfully. “Do you understand what I’m telling you, Rabbi?”
“You mean at the auditorium?”
Moskover lit up. “Aha! You see now, don’t you? That’s how the analytical mind works, Rabbi. Now we’re getting somewhere. That’s Step Two. You wanna know Step Three?”
“By all means. Please go on,” said the Lubavitcher.
“Step Three!” Moskover announced. Then, in an even more confidential tone, “Last night was what a man gifted with an analytical mind would call spilt milk. I have a knack for calling a spade a spade and last night can only be described that way: spilt milk. And you know what they say about spilt milk?”
Teitelman delayed his response long enough to thrust a hand into his trouser pocket and pinch himself. “I believe the expression is, ‘Never cry over split milk.’”
“Straight to the head of the class!” cried Moskover. “You’re beginning to follow my line of thinking, I can see that. The analytical mind, logic, everything in order: Step One, Step Two, Step Three. Ready for Step Four?”
Without sarcasm, but striving mightily not to laugh in the face of his new mentor, Teitelman said, “I can hardly wait.” “The fourth step is to think positively, by which I mean that when a person such as yourself isn’t blessed with a natural sense of humour, he’s gotta make a point of working at it. Understand what I’m saying? You’ve gotta practise it, the same way young Glick here practises piano.”
“A couple of hours a day. Is that what you suggest?” asked the rabbi.
“Exactly. You set aside, say, an hour before breakfast, another hour before bed. And you practise telling jokes, you read something funny you can use in your sermons, like for instance something from one of Buckner Finsterwald’s stories. Do you understand what I’m saying, Rabbi?”
“Oh yes, yes indeed.” Rabbi Teitelman took a firmer grip on his parcel of eggs, ready to leave. But Morris Moskover laid a restraining hand on him.
“One more thing, Rabbi. Call it Step Five. Timing. Timing!” he repeated. “Like the Good Book says, there’s a time for everything. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to make jokes.” Moskover paused to gather moral force for the rest of the homily. “And a time not to make jokes!”
“You mean,” Teitelman put in, “a sense of the fitness of things?”
With a curt wave of his hand, Moskover brushed away the rabbi’s suggestion. “Why use a hundred words when one will do? Timing, that’s what I’m talking about. Now take last night. It was an occasion to do a lot of things, but to crack jokes?”
The young rabbi looked hastily about him. Kerkorian and the other customers in the shop were all ears. Was this, he asked himself, what the Local Sage meant by timing?
“Do you really think,” Moskover was not about to let up, “last night was the proper time and place to try out a comedy act?”
As the supplier of local colour, much of which had formed the basis of Teitelman’s “invocation” the night before, Maximilian Glick felt that both he and his protegé (for that was how he now regarded Teitelman) were being impugned. If the Lubavitcher was not of a mind to defend his own performance, then Maximilian Glick, the rabbi’s personal intelligence agent, would have to take up sword and shield for him. “Mr. Moskover,” Max said, “that question’s really not —”
“Max!” Teitelman cut in sharply. Then, softly, he said to his pupil, “It’s okay, Max. Relax, relax.” He returned to Moskover. “I’m beginning to appreciate how well you’ve earned your reputation in Steelton, Mr. Moskover.”
Moskover shrugged. “Earned is an understatement, Rabbi. Believe me, more than one person in this town has said I’m the one the Governor General should give a medal to. Last night Zelig Peikes, that tightwad Milt Katzenberg and the old man, Maxie’s grandfather, they were ready to do terrible things, terrible things. But I said to them, ‘Gentlemen, be analytical, be logical, be positive!’ Thank God there’s one cool head in Steelton. Even Buckner Finsterwald himself, when he heard me reasoning with them, was full of praise. ‘This man is a messiah!’ That’s what Buckner Finsterwald called me. And that’s why I’m so glad you had the good fortune to run into me tonight, Rabbi. Better all this should come from a man of wisdom, a man of humour. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Teitelman tried to sound grateful. “It’s not every day that a man gets advice like yours, Mr. Moskover.”
“Good, good. I knew you’d take what I had to say in the proper spirit.” Moskover gave the rabbi a fatherly pat on the shoulder, took up his small parcel of cheese and turned to leave.
“Just a moment, Mr. Moskover,” Amos Kerkorian piped up. “That’ll be two dollars ninety-three cents, please.”
“Put it on my account, Kerkorian,” Moskover responded. “I have a big dividend cheque coming next week. My son-in- law from Chicago handles all my investments these days, you know. Pay you next Wednesday, for sure.”
Kerkorian shook his head. “Sorry, Mr. Moskover, but no more credit.”
Old Morris Moskover’s jaw dropped and Maximilian noticed that there was a darkish stubble on it, like tiny iron filings. Disbelief in his sharp little eyes, Moskover said, “I … I beg your pardon?”
“I said no more credit, Mr. Moskover. I’ve got to pay for my merchandise when I buy it at the wholesale and I’ve got to get paid when I sell it to my customers. Simple as that.” Kerkorian looked toward the rabbi and Maximilian and winked slyly.
Moskover, meanwhile, was beside himself. “B-b-but . . . ,” he sputtered.
Kerkorian held out his hand. “Cash, Mr. Moskover,” he said in a very business-like manner. “Two dollars ninety-three cents, please.”
Once again the other customers in the shop were all eyes and ears. Like a beetle pinned to the centre of a display card, the Sage began to squirm. Beneath his thick overcoat his body shook, first with confusion, then annoyance, then anger. “I’ve been your customer for thirty years, Kerkorian. For a rotten two dollars ninety-three cents you don’t trust me, Morris Moskover? This is an outrage!” he screamed.
For a split second there was silence in the grocery store. Then Kerkorian threw back his head and burst into laughter. “Oh God, Mr. Moskover … oh God!”
“What’s so funny?” Moskover’s face was now ashen.
“I was,” again the grocer burst into laughter, “I was just kidding, for heaven’s sake. It was just a joke.”
“You call that a joke!”
“C’mon,” said Kerkorian, “where’s that famous sense of humour of yours, Mr. Moskover? The sense of humour you were just talking about?”
“You call that a joke!” Moskover repeated. “Listen to me Kerkorian. I don’t need your crummy credit. I got investments, you hear? Big investments, in Chicago. My son-in-law is an important financial consultant in Chicago. He can buy and sell the likes of you just by snapping his fingers.”
Kerkorian’s face instantly turned as ashen as Moskover’s. “Nobody can buy and sell Amos Kerkorian just by snapping fingers. Nobody! And as for your fancy son-in-law in Chicago, the whole town knows he’s really a gambler, a sharpie. I’ve seen him here in Steelton a couple of years ago in his white Cadillac, with his foot-long cigar sticking out of his mouth. If he’s a financial consultant, I’m the Queen of England!”
Moskover stepped forward to the counter and faced the grocer across the old brass cash register. “That remark will cost you thousands of dollars, Kerkorian. From now on I take my business to the supermarket!” He threw down the cheese — all eighteen ounces — and without so much as a nod in the direction of Rabbi Teitelman and Max, stormed out of the shop, slamming the door behind him with such force that the façade of the building shook and a pyramid of oranges in Kerkorian’s window collapsed.
Back on the sidewalk once more, Maximilian and the rabbi walked together in stunned silence. The boy was now completely oblivious to other pedestrians or passing motorists. Whoever saw the pair together, or didn’t, it didn’t matter to Max. All he could think of were the strange events he’d just witnessed. After they’d walked a block, the boy stopped dead in his tracks.
“What is it, Maximilian?”
“I don’t understand it.”
“Understand what?”
“I don’t understand anything that happened in there. It’s crazy!”
“No, Maximilian,” said the Lubavitcher, “it wasn’t crazy. At least, no crazier than life. You remember, I told you nobody can guarantee what will happen to people from one second to the next? God had a choice, you see. He could have made us into dull, predictable animals. You know, jiggle a little bell and we come running for a banana. Or He could have made us into the kind of mysterious packages that we are. And He chose, obviously, to populate the world with mystery: you, me, Moskover, Kerkorian and a few billion others. Open the wrapping and God only knows what you’ll find inside.”
“But something’s not right,” Max protested. “All the time old Moskover was standing there accusing you of not having a sense of humour, you said nothing, not a word. Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Tell me,” said the Lubavitcher, “if I’d told Morris Moskover the truth about myself, or if you had told him, which, thank God, you didn’t, would Morris Moskover have understood?”
Maximilian pondered the question. “No,” he said at last. “No, he wouldn’t have understood. But, all the same, I sure had an urge to tell him how wrong he was.”
“Still, Maximilian, you chose to hold your tongue.”
“A secret’s a secret.”
“Yes,” said the Lubavitcher. “And don’t feel badly about me. What’s more important, much more important, is what you learned in there. The difference between a fool and a sage, a real sage, is that the sage knows when to keep quiet. And now you’d better head for home or your folks’ll think you’re being held prisoner in some Lubavitcher dungeon. Good night, Mr. Glick.”
They parted at a street corner, Max starting north toward Pine Hill, the rabbi west to his small apartment. Suddenly Max swung round. “Rabbi,” he called back, “Rabbi!”
Teitelman turned. “Yes, Maximilian?”
The boy walked back to where the rabbi was standing. “I was wondering …”
“Yes?”
“I was wondering … Well, I know you have very strict rules about food and what you can eat and what you can’t. But I, uh …”
“Well, out with it, Mr. Glick. Otherwise they’re gonna have to chop us out of the ice in the morning.” The rabbi pretended to be freezing to death.
“Do you think, if we’re careful about what we serve, you could come for supper at our house one night next week?”
The young Lubavitcher’s pale face grew very stern. “I must warn you, Mr. Glick, I’m a fearsome guest.”
“Fearsome?”
“Yes, a terror. I run my fingers over furniture to check for dust. I inspect the insides of refrigerators and stoves. I do chemical tests on the wine and food.”
“Will you come for supper one night?” “Invite me and I’ll come.”
The first announcement Maximilian made when he entered the house on Pine Hill was, “Guess who’s coming to supper? The rabbi!”
Sarah Glick dropped her soup ladle, Henry Glick dropped his evening paper and both cried out at the same time.
“Good grief!” Sarah Glick said quietly as she sat on a kitchen stool. “What do you serve a man like that? Air and water?”
“You ever tried making the world’s largest omelette?” said her husband.
Both father and mother Glick stared at their son. Still quiet, as if resigned to catastrophe, Sarah Glick said to Maximilian, “What have you gone and done?”
The boy smiled at his mother. Then he remembered Rabbi Teitelman’s words — the spinning wheel, the open sewer — and the boy’s smile vanished. “I’m not sure,” he said.
Thirteen
Five o’clock on a dark February afternoon, at the intersection of King and Queen streets, all three regulation catastrophes are present: dead centre lies a sewer excavation of archaeological proportions, freshly dug by the Steelton Works Department (out-of-season, unaccountably); the traffic lights are out of order; and as a further act of public mischief they flash green for all directions. Enticed by green lights everywhere, but frustrated by striped wooden barricades and piles of freezing mud, motorists improvise their way out of no-man’s land, some cavalierly mounting curbs and transforming sidewalks into bypasses, others executing bold U- turns and backups. They shout at each other through half-open steamy windows, swelling the wintry dusk with a chorus of angry advice. A lone police officer, Corporal Wilson (recently promoted from Constable First Class), dispatched to restore order, drops his arms to his sides. His whistle dangles in silence at the end of its cord. Someday, in retirement, sitting by a crackling fire, he will tell his grandchildren of days like this. He will tell them how he stood his ground. He will omit the sad fact of his defeat.
Add to these catastrophes a fourth: a van has just broken down nea
r the rim of the excavation. The blockage complete, all traffic now comes to a tangled standstill.
The stalled van is the type used by campers and sportsmen, with a wide sliding side door and double doors at the rear. It is black, severely black, not a speck of trim anywhere. So clogged with ice and snow are the wheel wells that the tires appear locked in place. Except for two fan-shaped clearings in the windshield where the wipers have done some good, the van is coated with a thick layer of road salt and dirt. From top to bottom the vehicle is a mess. Wherever it has come from — a battlefield, a swamp — it has blazed its own trail.
A bronchial cough comes from the engine compartment as the driver attempts to start the motor; it seems the van’s trouble is respiratory. On the curb, a few steps away, Cal Irwin, the hardware dealer, officially informs a knot of curious pedestrians, “She’s either gettin’ too much air, or not enough, that’s for sure.” Fancying himself an expert, he cups his hands around his mouth and through this megaphone calls to the unseen operator of the van, “She’s flooded for God’s sake. Press the gas pedal to the floor and start ’er up. Press it right to the floor.” Someday, in his retirement, Irwin will tell his grandchildren how one February day he saved the hour at King and Queen.
The operator, still invisible, follows Irwin’s instructions. The van sputters into half-life, for a few seconds convulses, then whimpers and dies.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” mutters Irwin, feeling superior to whatever idiot sits behind the wheel of the van. He then steps manfully off the curb, ignoring the ankle-deep slush into which his low boots have disappeared, and plants himself directly in front of the van, the better to repeat his expert recommendations to the driver. Drawing so close that his nose nearly rubs the windshield, he peers inside.
“For God’s sake!” he exclaims again.
Suddenly the driver’s side window comes down and a young man sticks his head out. “That’s three times you’ve mentioned the Lord’s name. Maybe you can tell us if He’s provided a Ford dealer in these parts?”
The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick Page 12
